GLENDALE, Ariz.—Luis Cruz is the offspring of a power-hitting Mexican legend of the same name. He has grinded through the minor leagues as a member of six different organizations, and, at age 29, he has compiled just 465 plate appearances over four seasons in the big leagues.

He is also one of the most polite, mild-mannered and unassuming players in the majors, having finally found a niche as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ third baseman and producing a 106 OPS-plus in 78 games last season. It was sort of a coming-out party for mostly a career minor-leaguer.

Unfortunately for him, Luis Cruz won’t be remembered for any of that unless he becomes one of the game’s great late bloomers. Nope.

What Cruz is going to be known for now is inciting one of the uglier basebrawls in recent memory and the first for the World Baseball Classic during the Canada-Mexico game Saturday at Chase Field.

Cruz accounted for his highlighted role with three simple words repeated eight times in a brief interview Monday morning in the Dodgers clubhouse.

“I lost it,” Cruz said on his first day back with his major league team.

“I was feeling the game, and I lost it,” he continued. “I feel bad about it, but I have to move on and get ready for the season.”

That was basically Cruz’s answer to every question asked of him regarding the brawl, a complete melee with kicks, punches, body slams, fights in the stands and objects flying onto the field.

It almost doesn’t matter what kind of season Cruz produces this summer—and maybe for the rest of his career.

He will now and forever be known as the Mexican third baseman who was so angry about Canada bunting with a six-run lead in the ninth inning as well as a few late-and-hard slides earlier that he ordered his pitcher to hit the next batter after the bunt. National television cameras caught it all, including Cruz pointing toward his ribcage, then the batter and, in Spanish, telling pitcher Arnold Leon to throw at the next Canadian hitter.

Cruz was also the guy who threw the first punch after the benches cleared and the teams collided in the area between the mound and home plate.

You can already hear the opposing broadcasters for whatever team the Dodgers are playing this season.

“Here is Luis Cruz batting for the Dodgers. Baseball fans probably remember Cruz as the player who pretty much started that ridiculous brawl between Canada and Mexico in last spring’s World Baseball Classic.”

No matter how nice Cruz has already been or ever will be in his career, he is labeled as he was almost immediately in the Chase Field press box by the majority of writers who never had any interaction with him—a troublemaker, a jerk, a jackass of a player who couldn’t handle losing.

Without knowing Cruz, it’s easy to attach those things to him. He looked every bit the part Saturday. He was villain non grata.

Adrian Gonzalez, who is teammates with Cruz on Mexico and the Dodgers as well as a good friend, was asked how out of character Cruz’s actions were in that game. As he did during the brawl, Gonzalez stayed away.

“He gave you guys his answers, no?” Gonzalez asked. “Well, there you go.”

Taylor Green was Canada’s third baseman in the WBC, and he knows Cruz well. The two infielders spent lots of time together during spring training in 2010 with the Milwaukee Brewers, taking ground balls, batting practice and joking around together.

Green said what Gonzalez would not, that the man who reacted on emotion Saturday was not the same Cruz he got to know three years ago.

“Top-notch guy,” Green said Monday. “I like him. I still like him a lot.”

On the surface, it’s understandable why Cruz got mad enough to green-light the plunking of a Canadian hitter. Up big in the ninth inning, Canada’s Chris Robinson bunted for a hit. Normally that is unacceptable behavior based on baseball’s sometimes-archaic unwritten rules.

But in this case, Robinson, who delivered a couple of those hard slides, should have gotten a pass because of the WBC’s tiebreak rules, which one needs a degree from MIT to fully comprehend.

Run differential, or some formula including it, plays a big role in how teams with the same record in pool play are separated. Every run matters in the tournament, even if a game is already well in hand. All the players were told this before their first game.

Asked if he knew of the rule at the time of that infamous bunt, Cruz stuck to his stock answer.

“I just lost it,” Cruz repeated, words he also told Dodgers teammate A.J. Ellis minutes later when Ellis welcomed him back and asked him about the fight.

Cruz is right. He did lose it, along with just about any chance to be seen nationally and internationally as the good and decent man others know him to be.